


By the Fire, in the Snow

by AstroGirl



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 07:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1129986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Belle and Bae return to the Dark Castle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By the Fire, in the Snow

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for Trope Bingo, for the prompt "snowed in." Contains MAJOR SPOILERS for episode 3x11. And it will undoubtedly be jossed just as soon as the show comes back from hiatus, but what the hell.

"C'mon, Belle," he says. "This is nuts. It's a long way to travel on your own, and the weather in the mountains has to be bad this time of year."

"I know," she says. She fiddles with her half-filled travelling pack, looking at the book in her hand for a moment before deciding to slip it in. It's a large pack for such a small person; he hopes she's not planning on filling it entirely with books. "And I appreciate Snow White and the prince offering to let me stay here. It's just... I need to go _home_ , Baelfire. And that's the only home I have."

He doesn't correct her about his name. He doesn't ask about her father's home, either. He doesn't know the full story there, but he can guess at some of it, and he of all people knows what it's like to want nothing to do with your father. (He thinks he also might understand what it's like to regret that, but he has no idea what to do with his feelings on that subject right now, and Belle doesn't need his emotional baggage dumped on top of her own.)

He also doesn't say, "Are you sure it's not because you're holding on to some crazy hope that he's still alive, and you figure that's the first place he'll go if he shows up?" Because if it's true -- and he thinks it probably is -- pointing it out is unlikely to change her mind. Besides, it's possible, just remotely possible, that she's right. And he doesn't really know how to deal with that thought right now, either.

Instead, he runs a hand through his hair and says, "The place isn't in very good shape."

"Then I'll have to clean it," she says, rearranging some clothing in the pack. "That's nothing I haven't done before."

"Last time I was there, it had squatters."

"Then I'll have someone to talk to." She looks up from the pack and into his eyes, her chin lifted a little, defiant. A woman with her mind made up.

He stares at her for a moment, wishing he understood... well, pretty much anything. Starting with how the man who dropped him through a portal and ripped out his mother's heart could possibly have ended up in a relationship with this... this perfectly nice librarian.

"You, uh, you were his housekeeper, right? In the castle?"

"Yes," she says. She looks away, down at her pack again.

"By choice?" He didn't realize he was going to ask until the words were out, but he suddenly realizes he desperately wants to know.

"It's complicated," she says. "But... yes. It was my choice."

"He made a deal for you." Of course he did.

"It was _my choice_ ," she says, insistent.

"Okay," he says. He's backing off the topic, but whether for her sake or his, he couldn't say. "Okay."

"You should come, you know" she says, quietly. "It is rightfully yours."

"What? You mean the _castle_? No, no." Sudden, still-too-vivid memories roil his gut: his father trying to give him all manner of things he didn't want. Magic, castles, blood... "You can have it. I'm sure he would have wanted you to have it."

"Thank you," she says. She seems genuinely grateful. Moved. He's not sure, but he thinks she might be blinking back tears.

He imagines her out on the road, all alone in a world she hasn't seen in so long it might as well be alien to her. 

"Shit," he says. "Listen, just... stay right here and don't leave until I get back. Okay?"

"Why?"

"Because if I'm going with you, I'm gonna need a little time to pack."

She blinks again, and smiles for what he's pretty sure is the first time since his papa died. Or disappeared, or whatever it is he did. 

When she hugs him, he just stands there like an idiot until she stops, but as he turns to leave the room, he finds he has to blink a little bit, himself.

**

On the road, they don't talk much. Or, they do, but only about safe, simple things. Their route. Their provisions. The increasingly ominous-looking weather. How much easier this trip would have been with horses, if most of them hadn't died or gone back to the wild in the last twenty-nine years. 

But they don't talk about Rumplestiltskin, or Henry, or Storybrooke, or any of the things that keep either of them awake at night. He feels like they're tiptoeing around each other's grief, and he's not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, just that he's powerless to change it.

**

When they finally reach the castle, fat flakes of snow are falling. He feels more chilled than he can ever remember being. He thinks sometimes that all those years spent in Neverland's unchanging tropical night might have ruined him for cold weather. He always regarded New York winters as a kind of punishment, but somehow they never seemed quite this bitter.

Belle, staring at the castle, seems not to notice the cold, seems as if she's likely to stand there forever unless he pushes her on. He wonders what she's seeing, what kind of homecoming this is for her. He still can't imagine her living here with his father, can't imagine what that life was like for either of them.

"Come on," he says. "We need to get inside. Get a fire going."

"It's so dark," she says, her voice barely above a whisper.

"They do call it the Dark Castle," he says, then winces, because the joke sounds flat and awful, even to him. He reaches for her arm, maybe as an apology, maybe to get her walking again, but she's already moving up the path, determination in her stride. He admires her, he supposes, for the way she seems to know exactly what she wants. Even if what she wants is a drafty old castle full of dark magic and a million annoying reminders of things that might have been.

He realizes he's been standing there far too long, despite the numbing cold. He brushes the rapidly accumulating snow from his shoulders and rushes forward to catch her up. The path to the castle is longer and steeper than he remembers, but eventually he looks up and realizes they've made it.

Belle takes a deep breath and pushes. The heavy doors slide easily, noiselessly open, as if they've been waiting all this time for her touch. Inside, the main hall is dark and silent, and not much warmer than the outside. Dust and debris still litter the floor, but this time there are no still-wet drinking glasses. No signs of habitation at all.

"Looks like Robin Hood and his men decided to move on," he says. "I guess it's just us."

He turns to Belle in time to see her yank her hand away from a broken spindle lying discarded on the floor. He looks away quickly, swallowing past a sudden lump in his throat. "I'll see about getting a fire started," he says.

"Magic used to keep it warm in here," Belle says, her voice almost lost in the castle's emptiness. "Even without a fire. I suppose it's all gone now."

"I'll make it warmer," he says, as he bends to inspect the fireplace. The chimney, he's relieved to note, looks clean, and there's a good amount of wood stacked nearby. "That, I can do."

She nods firmly. "Right," she says, and strides across the room, towards the door in the far wall.

"Where are you going?"

"To get a broom," she says. "This is our home. I'm going to make it livable."

"Well... it's your home," he says gently. Awkwardly. "You know I'm not staying, right?"

"I know," she says, and suddenly he feels like a jerk, because maybe what she meant was her home and Papa's. But by the time he thinks to stammer out some kind of apology, she's gone.

She's back before he's done gathering up the kindling, though, wielding a straw broom as if it were a sword, ruthlessly attacking dead leaves and dirt as if they were her personal enemies. By the time he's got the fire blazing away to his satisfaction, she's almost done sweeping away the worst of the grime.

Quietly, he takes a cloth from his pack and wipes a few last cobwebs from the base of a fancy pedestal that no doubt once held an equally fancy object. There's an awful lot of _stuff_ in this castle, even now. He wonders if having it around made his father feel rich and important. Whether it helped him to forget where he came from or reminded him how far he'd come. Not that it matters much now, if it ever did.

Belle looks around, nods in satisfaction, and tucks her broom tidily away in a corner, its task complete. He has to admit, the place looks... Well, he won't go so far as to say home-like, but it does look more like a place where people might want to live.

Belle walks slowly over to a window and looks out. Faint, snow-laden winter sunlight paints shifting highlights in her hair. "I don't think it would be a very good idea for you to leave today," she says.

"I wasn't planning on it," he says. "I figured, maybe in the morning." He moves to stand behind her at the window, and it's immediately obvious that she's right. The snow is coming hard and heavy now, and outside doesn't look like anyplace he wants to be.

"We should figure out what we're doing for the night," he says, after a moment. "We could get some other rooms warmed up. There's plenty of wood. Do you have a bedroom or something? I mean... did you?" He wonders even as he says it if it's something he should ask. Did she share a room with his father? Did he keep her locked in the dungeon? Both of those possibilities seem equally plausible to him.

"I think I might just want to sleep in here tonight," she says, biting her lip. "I thought I was ready to come back here, but..."

"No, no," he says, waving a hand as if to brush away whatever reluctant confession she might have been about to make. "That's fine. I don't really feel like doing that much work right now, anyway. We can bring in some blankets, cushions, sleep by the fire. It'll be fine."

"Thank you," she says. She starts to move towards him a little, as if she wants to hug him again, but doesn't.

"Sure," he says, managing a hint of a smile. "I'll go see what I can find."

**

There are blankets and cushions, pillows and rugs, some of them obviously disturbed by Robin Hood's people, some of them not. They're not very difficult to find. The castle is full of deserted bedrooms, deserted lounges, deserted storerooms. He'd almost swear there's more space inside the building than outside. He feels a little sorry for Belle, if she really did have to clean it all.

Dragging his now-substantial bundle of bedding behind him, thinking, _maybe one more blanket_ , he opens one last, nondescript door at the end of a hallway, and stops short. It's another storeroom of some kind, full of heavy locked cabinets and equally heavy locked chests, many of them covered with symbols he doesn't want to examine too closely. There is also, he suddenly sees, a dense, flickery blue light gathering itself from the four corners of the room. By the time this fact has fully penetrated his brain, it's condensed itself into a large glowing ball, hovering in front of him and somehow managing to give the eerie impression that it's _looking_ at him. He remembers something like this from his youth, a protective conjuration his father placed on their home once, before he realized that his reputation alone was powerful enough to keep everyone away. For a brief, absurd moment, he wonders if it's meant to protect the contents of this room, or whether it's just been stored here and forgotten.

It crackles and surges towards him, and he finds himself frozen, unable to move. "It's Baelfire!" he blurts out, hoping his father's magic will recognize him. "It's Baelfire! Stop!"

It does. It stops, and then it dissipates, so quickly he might almost believe he imagined it, if it weren't for the afterimage seared uncomfortably into his eyes. He blinks until even that fades away, casts one last glance around the room and shuts the door. There is definitely nothing in there he wants.

But... _Blood magic_ , he thinks, and an idea enters his head, one he tries to shake out but can't. Heart beating a little too loudly in his ears, he moves through the castle at a not-quite-run, back the way he came.

Belle is nowhere to be seen, but the fact barely registers as he seizes the walking stick, twirls it like a baton, and once again reveals the hidden door. The crystal ball is right where he left it. He lifts it with hands that might be trembling a little, but, he tells himself, only from the cold. He closes his eyes and thinks of his son, of the way it felt to learn he existed, the way it felt to lose him again.

He opens his eyes. Nothing. Try again. _Emma_ , he thinks, insistent. Longing and regret and admiration. _Emma_. Nothing. Well, really, what did he expect? They're in a land without magic. It's probably for the best, anyway. Does he really want to see them, living their lives, remembering him only as the man who abandoned them both? 

He moves to put the device down, then hesitates, cradles it to him again, and remembers his father. The globe flickers for a moment, as if it's somehow thinking, then settles back into emptiness.

He stands there holding it until he stops feeling raw and empty, and starts feeling stupid. Then he sets it down carefully in its place and goes back for the bedding.

**

When he returns, Belle's still not there. Maybe she went to find a chamber pot or something, he thinks, and he stands in the doorway for a moment, distracting himself with thoughts of how acutely he misses flush toilets and central heating. And cars. And Gore-Tex boots, if you _have_ to go walking in the snow. And his crappy apartment. And pizza. And...

And he really needs to arrange these blankets and things now. 

He makes a nice job of it: two tidy, cozy beds, placed just the right distance from the fire. Much better than the thin bedrolls they had on the road, even if it doesn't exactly feel like civilization.

Belle still isn't back, and it occurs to him that maybe he should worry. Maybe there are more magical booby traps, ones that won't disarm themselves for her the way they did for him. Draping a blanket around his shoulders -- he _really_ doesn't want to leave the warmth of the fire and head back into this damned freezing castle -- he sets out in search of her.

He finds her in the kitchen, staring blankly into what appears to be a pantry. "Belle?" 

She starts, obviously not having heard him approach, and gives him a forced-looking smile. "I was looking to see if there was any food. Well... actually, I was hoping there might be some tea."

"It's been a long time," he says, dubiously.

"I know. But I thought he might have preserved things. With magic. He used to do that sometimes, if there was more than we could eat right away." She trails a hand across a dusty shelf. Whatever might have been stored there once has decayed into a dry, unidentifiable lump. 

"I guess he didn't think he'd be coming back." That thought hurts unexpectedly, a sharp little knifepoint of emotion. God, he did not want to come here again.

"There aren't any teacups, anyway," Belle says. "I think they all went to Storybrooke with him. They're all gone now." Her shoulders start to shake; he can see she's unsuccessfully holding back tears. He doesn't know why teacups, of all things, should provoke this reaction, but he's beginning to think she shouldn't have come here, either.

"Come on," he says, touching her shoulder gently. "Let's go back to the fire. The sun's setting. We should get some rest."

She nods, and together they return to the fire, eat silently from the still-plentiful provisions in their packs, and lie down to sleep.

He dreams of falling, and of a hand letting go of him. Again. _Still_. Life, he thinks, when he wakes up, is really damned unfair.

**

In the morning, the snow lies in deep drifts, with no sign that it's ever planning on stopping. The wind has picked up, too, hurling white gusts repeatedly against the windows.

"It looks like you're going to be stuck here for a while. I'm sorry."

"It's okay," he says, not at all sure that it is. He feels trapped. Stifled. He doesn't belong here.

He takes a deep breath and tells himself to knock it off. He's been through far worse than this.

"We'll just have to find something to keep ourselves busy," she says. "There's a lot of cleaning to be done. And there's books." She hesitates, and adds, in a small voice, "I hope the books are still there."

"Yeah," he says. "There's a library. I saw it. Looked to still be in good shape. I'd avoid the storeroom at the east end of the second floor, though. Some kind of magical booby trap."

Her mouth twists into something like a smile. "We've met," she says, and he wonders again at all the things he doesn't know about her life here. All the things he doesn't know about his father's life.

But he only nods. She looks at him for a moment, a difficult to read expression on her face, then she returns the nod, pulls herself up straight, collects her broom, and leaves.

He sits back down and stares into the fire.

Outside, the snow continues to fall.

**

She returns at dusk, her hair mussed, a streak of grime across her face. She looks tired. He feels a momentary twinge of guilt for not helping her with whatever it is she's been doing. But why should he? It's not his house. They've established this pretty clearly.

"Hey," he says.

"It's still snowing," she says.

"I saw."

Silence falls. She picks up a book, opens it, stares at it for a while, closes it again. She looks at him. He looks at the fire. Not that it's doing anything interesting.

"Bae..." she says, and then stops. "Is it all right if I call you Bae? Should I call you Neal?"

"I don't know," he says. "Neal" was supposed to be him, the person he'd chosen to be, but the name feels out of place here. Like a false identity. A lie. Like that life was nothing more than a dream. "Bae is okay, I guess."

"Bae," she says. She draws in a small, slow breath. He thinks it sounds like she's gathering her courage. "Why haven't we talked about him?" she says softly.

"What's there to talk about? The man's dead." She flinches a little, and he curses himself. "God, Belle, I'm sorry. I'm an ass."

"No you're _not_ ," she says, sounding offended on his behalf. "He loved you, you know."

He doesn't want to talk about this. Or maybe he does. He doesn't even know. If he had his father's magic, he'd melt the snow and be gone, and then he wouldn't have to decide.

"Bae?" Quietly.

"Yeah," he says. "I know. Probably woulda been easier if he didn't." It would, he realizes, have been easier on a lot of people.

The fire crackles. He pokes it, sparks flying upward.

"I thought I might have been your stepmother, one day," she says, finally.

"He would have been lucky to have you." He says it automatically, but it's true. Painfully true, really. "Would have been kind of funny, though," he adds, "you being about three hundred years younger than me."

"How did you manage?" Her voice is soft, punctuated with the crackling of the fire. "All those years, on your own?"

"Honestly, I don't even know. One day at a time, mostly. Sometimes I found people I thought would help, but that never really worked out so well."

She's moved closer to him without him realizing it, and rests a hand on his shoulder. He isn't sure how he feels about that. And if she gives him the speech -- the one he's been expecting -- about love and hope and how they might see the ones they're missing again, he's going to... He doesn't know what he's going to do, but he doesn't think it's likely to be pretty.

"I'm glad you're here," is what she says, instead. "I know it's probably selfish. But I am." She looks at him with a warmth in her eyes that's not entirely a reflection of the fire. Like he reminds her of someone she loves. Like he's someone she could care about. "You're... Well, I suppose you're the closest thing to family that I have, now." 

For a moment, he doesn't think he's going to be able to answer her. Not past the sudden dryness in his throat, or the embarrassing aching in his chest. "I don't think that's selfish," he says, at last. He turns his face to the window. Through the clouds, moonlight is shining on the snow. It's surprisingly pretty. "Maybe I'll stay for a while," he hears himself saying. "It's not like I've got anywhere else to go."

She squeezes his shoulder and the tentative smile on her face is heartbreakingly hopeful. "I'd like that." She looks at the window, too. "When the weather clears," she says, "the first thing I'm going to do is go down into the village and buy some tea."

"That could be a while," he says.

"Probably. But until then... maybe we could talk?" The way she asks it, he thinks she wouldn't hold it against him if he said no. No matter how lonely it might be for her.

He looks around the room. At the snow, the fire, at the ruined opulence that once marked his father's power. At the woman sitting next to him, sad and strong and kind. There's never really been anyone he could talk to without hiding some part of himself, he realizes. Not since his papa stopped listening. And maybe there are things he wants to know, after all.

"Yeah," he says. "Yeah. Maybe we can."


End file.
